Three-Martini Lunch (46 page)

First, the people.

I am very blessed to have a wonderful agent, Emily Forland. My thanks to her, Emma, Gail, and everyone at Brandt & Hochman.

I am extremely grateful for the editorial guidance I received from Amy Einhorn and Jake Morrissey, both of whom were very patient and encouraging. Thanks, too, to Liz Stein for her hard work when this book was in its early stages. Thank you to Kevin Murphy.

Thank you to Putnam and Ivan Held for publishing this book, and thank you to my publicist at Putnam, Stephanie Hargadon. I'd like to retroactively thank the very kind, very enthusiastic Penguin folks I came into contact with during the time my first book debuted: Kelly Welsh (now Rudolph), Lauren Truskowski, Heather Connor, Kayleigh Clark, Lydia Hirt, Katie McKee, Kate Stark, Alexis Welby, Tom Dussel, Dominique Jenkins, Alan Walker, Brian Wilson, Lisa Amoroso, Karl Krueger, Patrick Mcneirney, Lindsay Wood, Wendy Pearl, Tom Benton—and gosh,
I'm sure I'm forgetting a ton of people! Please forgive me. As this second book moves forward, I look forward to seeing some familiar faces and also meeting those folks I haven't met yet.

I am very thankful for the wisdom of my early readers who gave excellent feedback: Eva Talmadge, Julie Fogh, Brendan Jones, Will Chancellor, Susan Shin, Julia Masnik, Susan Wood, and Joe Campana. I am also very thankful for those who have shown friendship and support over the years: Jayme Yeo, Brian Shin, Ning Zhou, Melissa “MRC” Ryan Clark, Lyndsay Faye, Elizabeth Romanski, Matt Schwartz, Andy Knuesel, Sophie Guinet, Cécile Pradillon, Noah Ballard, Laura Van Der Veer, and Hana Landes. Thank you to Rice University professors Bob Patten and Colleen Lamos, who were kind enough to come to my fiction readings. Thank you to my family: Arthur, Sharon, Laurie, Melissa, Philippe, and now Rémy.

And last but not least, thank you to Atom Sharp for being my loving partner.

Now, the sources.

This book was born in large part from a desire to put several books in conversation with one another: Jack Kerouac's
On the Road
, Rona Jaffe's
The Best of Everything
, James Baldwin's
Giovanni's Room
, Truman Capote's
Breakfast at Tiffany's,
Sylvia Plath's
The Bell Jar
 . . . the list goes on. Anatole Broyard's
Kafka Was the Rage
was a very helpful memoir about life in Greenwich Village. I constructed much of Joey's interrogation scene from various testimonies recorded in David K. Johnson's
The Lavender Scare
. I gleaned details that went into Marvin Tillman's journal from Sammons and Morrow's
Harlem's Rattlers and the Great War
. I am very grateful for all these sources and more, all of which combined to create the cocktail that became
Three-Martini Lunch.

Suzanne Rindell is the author of
The Other Typist
. She lives in New York City and is, as always, at work on her next novel.

 

suzannerindell.com

twitter.com/SuzanneRindell

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